Ninth Chance
by The Last Deathly Guardian
Summary: Nine chances. When the world fell into the hands of Uchiha Madara, order was thrown out of balance, destiny was rewritten and Fate...had to intervene. Now the world was given nine chances to reverse the tide to end the war, and Uchiha Madara. And time was of the essence.
1. Prelude

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. All rights belong to Masashi Kishimoto. **

**"I can't sleep. I just can't. Every time I close my eyes, I can see it it happen again and again...and it just wouldn't stop."-Anonymous**

* * *

**Ninth Chance**

**Prelude**

It was chaos.

A devastation that had shook the earth to its core. Fire was the only sight for miles and miles, its ashy grey smoke displacing the oxygen in air. The sky, once a bright cerulean blue was now a sick crimson and the clouds no longer white and fluffy, but black and charred as the darkest coal. The moon dominated the high heavens, the sight of the Sun only a rare occurrence in these dark days, leaving a chill to pass over in its absence.

Nothing seemed to be alive. The plant life had long since died away, along with any animals and humans, all consumed by the fire. It was a nightmarish fire, dark and shadowy, its scorching touch causing death in an instant. It never went out as it burned for seven days, and seven nights. Seven days, and seven nights...its fiery touch had corrupted and consumed, and destroyed everything. Seven days, and seven nights...

And that was how long it took to bring the whole world down to its knees.

.

.

.

_Hope was a child's fairy tale. There had seemed no salvage from such destruction, and hope had shriveled up in the hearts of survivors, leaving behind voids of emptiness. There was no hope. Only survival now._

_Days had passed seamlessly, since the Fall. The black fires of Amaterasu had long since extinguished itself, leaving behind trails and trails of red ashes of barren wastelands. Food was non-existent, and so was water. Large lakes which once were filled up to brim with water were as dry as the gritty sands of the desert. Survival looked bleak, with starvation snapping at their heels, just moments away from claiming them right in the jaws of their own hunger. The odds of surviving were stacked high against them, and yet they did._

_Altogether, there were nine of them who had escaped. When the world collapsed they had ran, ran far away from the apocalypse lunging straight from behind them. They were alive, but it was at a high cost. Millions and millions dead. They remembered the stench of burning flesh wafting through the air, the screams of agony painfully piercing through their eardrums, and the horrific sight of bodies, all charred and mangled beyond recognition falling right and left to their death._

_And their punishment for living was nightmares; guilt and anger played and toyed with their minds every night, when they are at their weakest. And images seared so vividly in their minds, repeating and replaying, cruel and tauntingly, never letting them forget. Each night, they would wake up sweating, their breathing hard and labored. Each time, they would find each other in the darkness of the eternal night, and hold on to one another, reassuring themselves that they are not alone._

_And as each second passes by, they would all wonder to themselves, whether or not death would be a more merciful fate than living, surviving as they did. At least in death, they thought, there would be no pain._

.

.

.

Despair and madness had never mixed well together. While he had experienced madness, never before had he ever felt despair. Unlike now.

His cheeks sting against the cold air, his breath creating miniature puffs of white clouds as he exhaled. It was unbearably cold, but he did not care. Silence permeated around him, the snow crunching underneath his boots, as he hiked higher up the mountain side. The gourd at his back shifted slightly, the sand churning, tense and alert for an attack.

In his arms, he cradled a body.

Her skin was pale as eternal winter around them, and cold to the touch. She wasn't light nor heavy; not at all that difficult to carry as he trudged along through the thick snow. Her head rested snugly in the crook of his arm, her pink hair fanned across her face like flower petals that had been carefully strewn about her, framing her delicate, porcelain face. Her eyes were closed to the world, and her face was relaxed and peaceful that he almost could fool himself to believe she was slumbering. Almost.

His fingers were beginning to feel numb from carrying her and from the chill. His light green eyes squinted hard against the densely falling snow, trying to see past it and find a sign. And suddenly, something glinted at the edge of his vision, to the right. Tightening his grip, he quickly moved towards it, to find someone impatiently waiting for him.

The teenager did not speak. He only nodded at him in acknowledgement, before turning around and jumped into the hole next to him, not waiting to see if he followed. Without a moment's hesitation, he adjusted his grip on the girl and jumped down after him, the hole swallowing up behind him, plunging him into total darkness.


	2. At the Edge

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Masashi Kishimoto does.**

**"It's dark and cold, so you lit a match to be warm. But the fire sputters out a few seconds after. You take another match from the matchbox and lit it again. And like the first, it flickered and died out again. You can keep trying to light the matches again and again, but in the end you will have no matches left, and you'll still be sitting there, shivering from the cold, forever isolated in your own loneliness, in the dark. Hopeless." -The Last Deathly Guardian**

* * *

**Ninth Chance**

**Chapter I: At the Edge**

_Dirt and dust clung to their torn clothing, while the smell of ash and fire left a sharp, bitter taste in their mouths. It was an awful, disgusting flavour._

_Exactly like the man in front of them._

_Uchiha Madara graced them with a mocking smile, spreading his arms wide, practically inviting them to attack him with the opening he carelessly offered. "Come now, is that the best the Five Kages have to offer me?" Arrogance exuded from every inch of his posture. Hubris would have been fatal to any shinobi who dared directly challenge the Five Kages. But then again, he was hardly any shinobi._

_He was the _Uchiha Madara_. A wolf disguised in sheep's skin._

**Monster.**

_"I have to say I am disappointed," he said conversationally, as if he were commenting on something trivial as the weather. "Shinobi this day and age have certainly grown weaker-"_

_Without any indication, Mei Terumi flew at him, her hands flying through a series of hand signs, taking a moment to breathe in before shooting out scorching red magma from her mouth the next second. Closely followed behind her, the Raikage charged with his lightning lit fists, the Tsuchikage closely behind with his hands readying for his infamous Kekkai Genkai; particle release._

_"-but no matter." Madara dodged their attacks with embarrassing ease, all the while still speaking as if he were never interrupted in the first place. "When I make this world anew…"_

_Tsunade came right behind him then, chakra laced fists aimed to kill. He caught her hands, and swung her around to catch her in a deadlock. As she struggled out of his iron grip, he whispered his promise into the wind._

_"We will be weak no longer."_

* * *

Glory had once been his, he remembered. Awe and the boundless respect his people had once graced him with, their eyes showing him nothing of the past but the present and the future. He had been at the height of his power. He had been...happy. He had a family, friends, and people who believed in him. That was more he could ever wished or hope for. It was like he had stepped out from the mask of his past and finally lived in the present. He could hope for a brighter future. He could hope.

And yet, like all the positive things in his life, it did not last long. Happiness died out and turned to ashes, becoming relics of a distant time passed. And hope shrivelled up, blackened by pessimistic thoughts of his mind.

_I do not know whether or not I deserve to rot in this hell_, he thought quietly to himself, staring at the dying embers of the hearth. The cavern was still and silent, everyone had turned in for the day. Tired, jaded as they would be every day after the Fall. _We are not what we once were. We are weaker. Dependent._ He chuckled bitterly to himself. _And to think, I once was a Kage_, his innermost thoughts spat, the darkness welling up within him like the sly creeping roots of the Shodaime Hokage infamous Wood Release. Slowly, he began to think of it, swallowing him whole. And he welcomed its dark, tainted embrace. And why should he not? He had nothing left.

His eyes glanced around, his light malachite eyes dead. _We_ have nothing left.

_I feel like I am back to square one of my life. When people used to fear me, feel frightened when someone dares whisper my name. The monster that has nothing. Who loved no one but only _himself_. _**Sabaku no Gaara**_._ At those thoughts, he smiled a twisted, sardonic smile. No one was watching, they could not see then he was slipping back into the arms of his violent past. Could not see that he secretly cherished it. It was for the better that they did not know of these thoughts circulating around in his head. They would have turned on him. Subdue him. **_Kill him_**. For the greater good of their survival. Madness was his friend and ally in this world he no longer recognised but as the sick, corrupted handiwork of Uchiha Madara.

Sanity was slowly fading anyways; it was only a matter of time.

His eyes gleamed for a moment before turning dull again. _It is foolhardy to think that when the time comes when we would turn on each other, I would come up on top as victor. I am no match for Naruto. He is an opponent of his own wiles and strength. _Gaara laced his fingers, deep in thought. _But I am not so far gone into thinking of killing everybody. Yet. Time will come when plotting and planning will be a necessity. But not now. _He rubbed his temples wearily, sighing. _I am becoming too paranoid. We will not survive Madara's reign if we were to fight with each other. I-_

"N-no...n-n-no! P-please..."

The sound of whimpering broke him out of his thoughts. Gaara turned, squinting through the encroaching darkness, to see who it was this time. He could make out an indiscernible silhouette of a person, shaking violently from the looks of it. Whimpering. Gaara inhaled deeply, and exhaled. He may not be the most compassionate of the nine of them, but his heart was not made of stone. That is to say, he was not entirely heartless. Leaving his post by the fire, he picked his way towards the whimpers. His heart clenched painfully in his chest, when he saw who it was. It hurt him when he sees her in so much pain. It felt like someone had stabbed a knife straight into his heart...

"P-please...S-s-asuke..."

And twisted it, with intentions of burying the knife even deeper.

* * *

**You** may think that dying is painful.

_Torture_.

But the **truth** is, surviving while the other dies, is the real torture. At least in death, it is painless. It is quick. Surviving on the bridge of collapse, waiting and waiting and waiting for the time to finally let go and fall into the dark endless abyss...

_Sleep_.

But you simply **can't**.

_Die_.

Behind closed eyelids, they would be waiting for you. Mind gremlins. Gleeful mouths open and wide, ready to swallow you whole. Ready to hear you scream. As they make you endure the terrifying moments of your life over and over again like it was some sick twisted **game**…

_Bodies splintered and smashed._

You do not come out of a **war** unscathed.

_Minds shattered and ripped violently apart._

War has sunk its talons in everybody, killing off the weak en masse, while the strong and the few survivors escape its unsavoury clutches. But not without **scars**. It is shallow for a man who wears the mark of war on their sleeves to wave it around as if it were a freakin' trophy. Flashy and plastic and pathetic. It is nothing to be prideful of.

_Death plagues the lands like a wrathful wraith, hungry._

**Killing** is nothing more, nothing less than an act that will get you no farther than careless a step straight to Hell.

So Many. Mistakes. Wasted time. Wasted time.

And I do not have to see the hellish **burning** flames to know that…

My name is _Haruno Sakura_.

I am in **Hell**.

* * *

_Sakura opened her eyes._

_The sky was dyed in rich crimson tones, bathing the world well-below and beyond it in a horrifying spectrum of metallic blood. Air was poison, sly and unsuspecting. Lethal ones that she knew all too well, especially having killed thousands, millions with it. Now, it choked her. Not actually killing her, but still slowly, destroying her from the inside. Already the soft green glow of medical chakra lighted the inside of her mouth, at the tips of her fingers, around her eyes. Automatically. Healing the obvious damages of the venomous air had laid waste to her body. If only it could heal her mind too, which was shattered and splintered far too many times that she had finally lost count._

_Skeletal trees sprouted out from the charred mess that was once the ground, their white bone-like fingers open, far reaching as if intending to find some sort of grip, be it unwilling or not responding, to help them escape from the dead earth from which they had come forth. Flesh, old and crusty, fresh and still bleeding, clung to the ridges of the otherwise pristine bones, giving her the impression that they have been ripped involuntarily from their owners. Grotesque images came unboundedly into her mind just then, and she closed her eyes again, brows furrowed in concentration to banish away the mind gremlins._

_Gleeful and bloody sadistic would be the words she would describe mind gremlins, plunging into her mind like it some sort of open book for them to read and toy around with. The first time she had begun to visit the planes of her own specialised torture chambers, mind gremlins terrified her._

_Sometimes, she wished that Inner was here, not lying broken somewhere._

_Emerald eyes, wide-eyed and searching, looked past easily the graphic grotesques of her withering mind, searching, searching. For something._

_No, no. She shook her head, craning her neck. For someone. Anyone._

_She didn't want to be alone. Not again._

Scared. Alone. Isolated. Guilty...

"_H-hello? P-please, someone a-answer m-m-me!-" Her voice resonated eerily in the clearing. A warm, musty wind blew in response. She coughed, eyes watering. Without warning, suddenly the ground underneath her shook violently. The trees were sliced cleanly in half, through the middle of their bark, simultaneously. Lightning flashed overhead, and she watched fearfully as a bolt struck the earth. Fire._

_Black fire. _**Amaterasu**_. Hell__._

_She turned and ran. Unrelenting pursuit of the flames following right behind her._

_Fleshy remains of an arm caused her to trip, and she fell. It hurt, everything hurt. She tried to get up, but something locked onto her ankle. Fingers, fingers attached to a hand, attached to an arm, a body. Her body. Charred, mutilated beyond recognition, but she still recognized it as her. It grinned showing off its blood rimmed teeth, and peeling blackened skin. She tried to pull her leg away but to no avail._

_"P-please...N-no..."_

_Fire, fire, she could feel it coming near to her. Almost reaching. She needed to get away! She pulled and pulled, but the hand didn't let go. She could feel its scorching heat now, it was excruciating. Burning. Slowly, torturously so. Tears escaped from her, and she cried and wailed and screamed. She thought to herself,_ it isn't fair, it isn't fair, I can't die like this, I can't, Kami, it burns, it burns! Ah-

_Sakura let out another hoarse scream as Death enveloped her into its embrace…_

* * *

Gaara held her as she cried, whispering soft comforting words, although she was oblivious to it all. She was squirming again, tossing and turning, her eyes screwed tightly shut. He wanted to wake her but he had long since learned that he couldn't. Not without causing her more pain than whatever her nightmares have inflicted on her.

So he held her. It was not long before she slowly lulls herself into a semi-peaceful sleep, her heartbeat becoming constant and steady. After adjusting his hold on her, he finally allowed himself to drift off with her.

Unbeknownst to them, two conflicted cerulean eyes watched them from his own nightly post, as he struggled with his own drowning nightmarish memories of guilt. It was a civil war; two opposite sides of him clashing violently to determine the righted and the wronged.

_"Naruto...promise me that you will do it, promise me-"_

To help a friend who was suffering. Or, to keep a promise to dead one.

_"I-I...promise, Sasuke."_

Especially when he had promised _to kill her_.

* * *

_I whisper of a dark promise, tasting of sweetly of honey,_

_Lingering at the back of my mind, fuelling my thoughts,_

_Oh such sweet dark promise, tingling my very existence,_

_Slowly piecing the fractures of my broken self together,_

_Shining a false light when there had been none,_

_Handing me the blade to pierce the chinks in_

_Your _**armour**_.._

_._

Trust** no **one_._

* * *

**Like. Comment. Follow.**

Firstly, a treasure trove of apologies for a rather vague chapter. However, I plead my case that it is necessary. Everything will begin to make sense in the following chapters, though I must warn you that the plot will be progressing very slowly. The story will not even begin to take flight until the second arc, and that is still a long ways to go. On the bright side, I estimate that there will be only three to five chapters to contribute to the first arc, and then the real fun can begin.

To those who had favorited, commented and followed this story, thank you. I would give you all a basket of cookies if I were able to but…Have a virtual basket of cookies instead. I promise you they are just as good!

Until the next update.


	3. All Is Fair

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Naruto. **

* * *

**Ninth Chance**

**Chapter Two: All Is Fair**

_"I have always dreamed of attaining limitless powers," Uchiha Madara's newly reanimated body said, his head tilted heavenward with his hand over his dangerous crimson Mangekyou Sharingan. It almost looked like a coy gesture, an attempt to shy away from the grotesque sight of the many corpses around him, if not for the fact that not a minute ago, he was the one to killed them so ruthlessly. "How disappointing," Madara sighed, and to the collective of shinobi that were still alive, they noted how sincere his disappointment sounded. "…that those powers choses to unlock itself when I am now clearly dead."_

_The Fourth Division stared at him in apprehension, a shiver of foreboding stealing over them all at the casual words he handed to them, like a trivial piece of information worth discarding at a moment's notice. _

_But these thoughts were forgotten for a moment, for they were suddenly captivated by a rush of adrenaline, curiosity and fear when Uchiha Madara started to slowly lower his hand. It was extremely difficult to turn away; that perverse feeling of wanting to know so badly, that the threat of being killed for staying a moment longer were distant from their minds._

_Sabaku no Temari was shaken out of her stupor when their Proxy Commander, Nara Shikamaru, suddenly grabbed her hand and started shouting for everyone to retreat. Those within immediately vicinity heard him, but few of them reacted. Shikamaru gritted his teeth in frustration, but nothing could be done to save them. It was to either bow down and accept a full blown massacre or to attempt some sort of survival. _

_As they ran, darkness descended upon them, a bad omen that coloured the skies. Temari, who had long since regained ownership of her hand, couldn't resist the urge to look up. It made her stagger, the sheer size of it, a meteorite half the size of the Earth. 'Surreal,' she thought as hope was slowly swallowed by the inevitability of the situation. 'How could we ever hope to escape that?' _

_Glancing back, she was startled when her eyes instantly met the gleaming lilac orbs of a madman. It was difficult to pull away; she could feel those eyes ringed with black subconsciously drawing her, persistent as a magnetic pull; so terribly hard to resist._

_inhale_

_exhale_

_gasp_

_choke_

_thud_

_Temari fell face forward to the ground; her expressive malachite eyes, once full of life, glazed over as death claimed her. Sprouting out from her chest was a long obsidian rod, that dug itself into the ground when her body fell forwards, propping her up in a ridiculous mid-action of face-planting. It would have been funny._

Nara Shikamaru did not find it funny.

_An inhuman wail escaped from his throat then, but immediately he bit his lips hard enough to draw blood. He needed to be rational, he needed to be calm. Temari was dead. Shikamaru roughly wiped the tears from his eyes. It will only serve to hinder his vision. Why bother? Nothing matters anymore, she was gone. 'Focus, focus' Shikamaru chided to himself, trying to displace himself from the situation in front of him. He-they needed to survive, needed to find the others and regroup. He needed to avenged her; he needed to kill Madara, consequences be damned. 'Stop it, stop it!' The Nara clutched his head with a pained expression, forcing himself to take a back step. An another._

_Soon he was sprinting as fast as he could. To get away from it all. _

_From Temari, the girl he...love. From him, the cold-hearted demon who killed her._

_Amusedly, the monster in question watched him and the others retreat, relishing the aftermath of the massacre he had caused. Launching himself from his perch on the cliff-face, he made his made his way towards one particular casualty that had caught his interest. _

_"An unfortunate casualty," Madara said to no one in particular, hoisting her body over his shoulder with little effort. "You are a powerful wind user; I will grant that. It would be a waste to leave you here to rot."_

_Madara could distantly feel the ghost-like sensation of his chakra tingling at an idea that was beginning to manifest._

_"Death does not deserve you, my dear. Not yet."_

* * *

**_Dance and dance for me, my sweet darling,_**

**_Let your hair down as you twirl and spin about,_**

**_Smiling for me, and only for me alone._**

* * *

_Present time_

"Sakura-chan." Uzumaki Naruto, self-proclaimed Hokage, knelt slowly next to the aforementioned girl, his expression transitioning from disbelief, denial, horrified acceptance and finally grief. "What…what happened to you," he whispered brokenly, his larger hand grasping her smaller, colder ones. "Sakura-chan…" Naruto said her name again, his head bowed as his shoulders shook as he silently cried for another dead friend.

Gaara, who was the one to find and bring her here, gritted his teeth and turned his head away when Naruto started crying to give the blonde some semblance of privacy. Though her death cut him deeply, it could not begin to compare to the pain that Naruto must feel for losing not one but two of his teammates within a single year. It was like losing an arm or an eye; irreplaceable features that helps you function.

The former Kazekage closed his eyes, trying to remember the faces of his dear older siblings. Temari. Kankuro. They had all agreed to sign up for the war, even with the knowledge that there may the possibility of them dying.

He wished for a moment he could change the hands of time, and stop all of this from happening. The bloodshed, the war, and Uchiha Madara. Gaara did not even know how they had died; who had killed them, had they died in agony, what their last thoughts, could he have saved them?

It keeps him awake at night, the constant feeling of guilt and regret. Regret for a wasted childhood he had spent making their lives an absolute terror when he could have enjoyed the company of his siblings. Guilt for not being there to save them when he should have been, and letting them die. Sometimes he feels the tiniest bit of bitterness; hating them for leaving him alone to rot here in this hellish Earth.

"Gaara-san," a quiet, indifferent voice dispelled him from his turbulent thoughts, and he turned to see an aloof Nara Shikamaru studying him with a plain, contemplative look on his face. "If you don't mind, but I would like to ask you a few questions about where and how you found Sakura. Our position might have been compromised if he had seen her body." His unaffected tone at relaying his logic belied the way his lips curled in disgust whenever Uchiha Madara was implied or mentioned, and the way his brows furrowed at her name.

Though he would rather not relive the memory, he could not dispute the logic that the Nara had brought forth. Inclining his head as an answer, Gaara followed Shikamaru to where the others were gathered around their makeshift hearth, waiting.

Gaara glanced back at Naruto, deciding that it was best to leave him alone to his mourning for now. His green eyes hardened as he pursed his lips into a firm line when his eyes landed on her still form.

And just perhaps, the tiniest bit, he hated Haruno Sakura for leaving him too.

* * *

**"_Women love do to pointless things, don't they?" _**

–** Akasuna no Sasori**

* * *

Ever since she could remember, Inner had always been there, a tangible presence at the back of her mind. Loud, violent and expressive in ways she knew she would never be comfortable emulating outside her own thoughts. Inner provided her a way to vent out her frustrations and pent up emotions, in a less explosive manner.

And when she met Yamanaka Ino, Inner receded to the back of her mind. Here was a person who did not judge her, and was willing to be friends with an outcast (large pink headed freak) like her. With Ino she did not need to have Inner to store away her emotions, because she knew, Ino would not push her away for expressing her feelings or having her own opinions.

However, as time passed by and they entered the Academy, their friendship turned sour when they discovered that they (as well as the rest as the female population in the Academy) had a crush on Uchiha Sasuke.

It was precisely at that moment when she had confessed about her feelings for the Uchiha, and Ino traded their friendship for rivalry, Inner, who had been quiet for a long time, re-emerged back into her life in full force.

But Inner, this time around was heavily influenced by her crush for Sasuke and further fueled by her suppressed emotions as she tried to mould herself into the type of girl she thought he liked (it did not work, obviously).

Inner, who in the past could only voice a quiet idle thought at the back of her mind, became much stronger and louder, a nearly physical presence in her every thought.

And as Sakura grew stronger after being rejected by Sasuke, during her three years of intense training with Tsunade, Inner quietly became stronger as well. She was always there; in the way she moved, the way she talked, the way she fought.

Inner was there _every single_ time she thought about **Uchiha Sasuke**.

_"Hello, Outer."_

_"Inner..." _

It may have started with a crush, and gradually build up to something close to love and affection. But, Sakura believed, it was never a full-blown _obsession_.

_The way her monochrome copy stalked towards made the fine hairs on her metaphysical body tense and alert; it was the feeling one gets when they are about to be killed. "Inner, what is this? Where are we?" _

_"We are in our mind, Outer. Or should I say, my mind, after I am through with you." The smile she gave was absolutely chilling. "I have been waiting for years to do this." _

_"Inner, stop it. I'm in-charge here, so stop this. This is _MY BODY_; this is _MY MIND_." _

_"It _WAS _your body; it _WAS_ your mind. The moment you let Sasuke-kun die was the moment you forfeited your rights to control," Inner shimmered red for a moment before returning to normal. "Now be a good girl and let me seal you away, Outer. After all, dear Sasuke-kun needs _**me**_."_

Thus, it was the reason why she could not have anticipated that her own mind would revolt against her when she allowed Sasuke to die (but of course, who would even imagine that happening to them?)

Inner was the prominent part of her that was slowly devoted to Uchiha Sasuke and only him; the part of her that would do anything and everything for him. And as she finally came to this horrifying realisation, as she began to see Inner in a newer, harsher light, it was unfortunately, too late to do anything.

"_Inner, this isn't _**fair**!_" Outer protested, the panic in her voice making her voice pitch higher. "You can't do this to me!"_

_"Don't worry Outer, you'll be safe here in the back of _MY_ mind, forever. Maybe you'll be forgotten," she said with not small amount of glee, as watched Outer struggle fruitlessly with the chakra vines rapidly wrapping around her. "And maybe, you will even understand a bit of my pain, too." _

_"_INNER! INNER! INN-"_ Her protest eventually became silent, the seal spreading across her body like a parasite, caging her will inside. _

It was an impromptu battle of the minds, and yet she, the ID, lost to her own Alter Ego.

_Alone in the mindscape at last, Inner traced a nonsensical pattern on the ground where Outer had disappeared into. "Oh, Outer. For our love for Sasuke-kun, all's fair in love and war."_

Because dead or alive, Inner was not done with Uchiha Sasuke just yet.

* * *

_In eyes, not mine, I see the darkness of your soul,_

_Your hands stained with blood, and yet you smile,_

_Your heart blackened and charred by selfish desires,_

_An unquenchable thirst for your never-ending revenge,_

_All the while I had truly loved you, _

_Cherished the memories of you,_

_You were the light to my candle,_

_And with you, _

_**I will go out.**_

* * *

**Favourite. Comment. Follow.**

**A/N: I would like to point out that, if there is not a **'_Present Time' _**indicated at the beginning of a paragraph, this means that the scene had taken in the past. I am working to building Sakura towards the time of her death and converging the two past/present storytelling into the present later on. I am still experimenting on this, so please bear with me. I will probably spend another one or two chapters on the past before permanently staying in the present narrative.**

**Aside from that, let us all welcome NARA SHIKAMARU to the exclusive survivors-of-the-apocalypse club [clap clap clap]. Please treat him kindly everyone, he _had _lost someone dear to him after all.**

**Now, I have created a poll for the identity of the other four other survivors. Yes, _four. _The identity of the other two will be revealed in the next chapter, promise. Right, so back to the poll, t****he top four characters with the highest poll will then be include in the story. The character with the highest poll among the others, however, may get the chance to play a more actively exciting [cought cough] role in this Arc.**

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter.**

**-The Last Deathly Guardian**


End file.
